To grow its base of 350 enterprise clients, social media management tool Tracx is growing – and is planning for more. In February, it raised $18 million in Series C, and Tuesday, it unveiled the hiring of former Experian Marketing Services VP Amy Inlow as CMO.
CEO Eran Gilad said Tracx’s first 350 clients rolled in organically, but that’s changing. “We’ve been very lean so far, so we’re looking to allocate resources to grow,” he said.
The company plans on using the $18 million to drive adoption in the US and Europe – and to build the marketing unit that Inlow now oversees.
“I have domain expertise; I know a lot of the clients already,” Inlow said. “Introducing Tracx to some of those clients are things I want to do immediately here.”
Tracx’s current clients include Fortune 1,000 companies like ConAgra, Disney, BMW and Canon as well as agencies. Inlow will expand that client base and Tracx’s penetration into other verticals beyond its core (CPG, automotive, financial services, healthcare and retail) and into pharma, entertainment and travel.
Founded in 2008, the company said it has grown slowly because it focused on its product. By comparison, Salesforce.com acquired Radian6, HootSuite counts 10 million users and Sprinklr announced preparations for an IPO.
But Inlow believes the best product will win – as soon as prospects find out about it. And she feels there’s opportunity, as social media budgets have risen since 2012.
“We have a crucial, missing piece of this 360-degree view of the customer,” Inlow said. Basically, Tracx crunches social data together and integrates with other enterprise software (like CRM systems), allowing its clients to figure out how to execute.
Tracx’s insights could provide feedback about a faulty product, for instance, or analyze where a customer is in the purchase funnel. A company could discover if all its customers with high purchase intent are hanging out on Twitter or on a product-focused blog.
“It could be that Facebook is not the best way to sell cameras,” Gilad offered as example. “Certain blogs we cover yield a higher conversion rate.”
As the marketing and advertising worlds draw closer together, Tracx hopes to be in the middle.
“The answer lies in the ability to plug and play into the ecosystem, to round out the 360-degree view,” Gilad added.
